About

Maya

Jaina Island, Mexico

Dancing Ruler, 300 – 1200 CE

On View

Earthenware with Maya blue

Dimensions: 9 3/8 × 4 3/4 × 4 in. (23.8 × 12.1 × 10.2 cm)

Museum purchase, 2008.41

This sculpture comes from Jaina, an island on the Yucatán Peninsula’s Gulf Coast that served as a necropolis for Maya elite. As part of the funerary practice, ceramic figurines, frequently in the form of rattles and whistles, were included in burials. These figurines served to ensure the social position of the deceased in the afterlife. This dancing ruler contains small stones that, when shaken, rattle softly.